Yellowstone Day 1

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

YELLOWSTONE!!  WE FINALLY MADE IT!!

**Sorry but these next few posts will be very picture intense.**  I love Yellowstone!  It is so beautiful there!  Day 1 at Yellowstone we drove around the lower loop of the park.  We stopped at several geyser basins, including the famous Old Faithful.  There was a lot of getting in and out of the car and short hikes to see things.  The weather was perfect this day!  It was a little cool in the morning but it was perfect for Yellowstone.  The sky was cloudy most of the day which helped keep it from getting too hot in the afternoon.  We brought lunch food with us and ate in the car as we were traveling between sites.

Since we were in 3 separate cars, we brought walkie talkies with us and were able to communicate between cars while we were driving.  It was great!  I'm glad that someone suggested we bring them!  Unfortunately we were having so much fun and seeing so many cool things that we didn't get out of the park until after 9 p.m.  We had originally planned on eating dinner back at the rental home but decided to change our plans and stop for some fast food in the town of West Yellowstone.

So, here is a funny side story about our stop in West Yellowstone.  Our family opted for McDonalds.  We found one in town and pulled up to the drive-thru window.  As DH started to order our food we were told that they were out of the plain buns that don't have sesame seeds on them - the ones that are used for hamburgers and cheeseburgers.  Apparently they were unloading the truck right then that had the buns on it  but they didn't know how long until they were ready.  We asked if they could substitute the buns, to which we were told 'no'.  So we ended up having to order some quarter pounders with cheese on them for the kids and just split them up.  Unfortunately it ended up being a little more expensive than we wanted but the kids ate it all.  We still make jokes about the McDonalds that was out of buns!

I think the text above and the captions on the pictures below pretty much sums up the day.  We had a lot of fun being with family and the kids really enjoyed walking around with their cousins!

Our first animal sighting (besides the kids) was this group (herd?) of bison that was not too far from the entrance gate to Yellowstone.  I have never seen baby bison before and this group had a lot of them.  There was a ranger near the group that told us that the babies were just a week or two old.

Our family in front of some waterfalls - that you can just barely see.

No I do not have any problems putting leashes on my kids!  I definitely have more peace of mind when visiting a place like this and knowing that the little ones aren't able to easily wander off.

MJ is not too sure if she liked her hair blowing around so much in the wind!

Some beautiful shots from the Midway Geyser basin.

There were buffalo walking down the street on both sides of the car!  It was crazy!

Watching Old Faithful

DH with his siblings!

Old Faithful again - DH stayed to watch it go off again while I took most of the kids back to the car for a break and some snacks.

DH trying some nature shots.  This bird was pretty far up in the tree and DH was able to zoom in closely and get this awesome shot!

This was a really cool place called Dragon Mouth spring.  It really sounded like a dragon the way the water shot out of this 'cave'.

Some awesome buffalo shots.  I took these pictures out of the passenger window of the car.  They turned out really cool looking - especially the snot coming out of the buffalo's nose on the picture below.  (You may want to view it full-resolution to see the awesomeness of it!)